(2015), '"Keeping Pandora's (ballot) box half-shut": a comparative inquiry into the institutional limits of external voting in EU Member States', Democratization 22 (5)

Survey evidence suggests that Vladimir Putin's legitimacy rests on three pillars: domestic order, economic prosperity, and the demonstration of great power status internationally. This is problematic inasmuch as it is based on high degrees of personal popularity which inhibits and contravenes the legal-rational legitimacy of state institutions. This requires continued delivery in all three areas in order to maintain the legitimacy of the regime. This framework allows us better to interpret the 2014 Ukraine crisis as an attempt to shore up support in one 'pillar' as performance-based legitimacy recedes.

The article examines trends in participation and engagement in the post-Soviet sphere, treating participation as one element of a wider examination of the 'quality' of democracy. Through analysis of trends in political interest, trust and traditional and non-traditional forms of participation since 1989, and taking into account elements of social and political capital, it concludes that the citizens in postcommunist European states display fewer signs of political engagement than their Western counterparts, and that such tendencies are particularly notable in the post-Soviet 'outsider' states of Russia, Ukraine and, to a lesser extent, Belarus. Examination of the causes of disengagement suggests that it is partly accounted for by low levels of political efficacy and lack of interest in civic affairs.

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